Pity
by Wends
Summary: Kakyou reflects on one of his fellow Dragons. [post vol. 17 rated for very disturbing imagery]


Er, small disclaimer.

This was written while I was very, very tired and had 45 minutes to kill while on board the good ol' USS Theodore Roosevelt. Duty days tend to bring out insomniac tendancies in my person. I had email, I was bored, and I couldn't sleep. So this resulted. Excuse any grammatical errors - as said, I was really, really tired. Like the 'been up for many days and can't sleep because I'm afraid of them calling away some dumb casualty drill and me missing the mando muster 'cause I'm zonked in my rack' tired. And forgive any formatting fupahs - QuickEdit seems to hate my guts.

All characters, story lines, etc. are property of CLAMP. If I owned them, I'd sue everyone who dared to take Subby away from me. (glomps character possessively, laughs like the manic idiot she is)

_-BEGIN FIC-_

I've hated you for so long.

Hokuto, dear Hokuto. She promised me that one day she'd take me up and out. She and I were going to leave my prison cell together. She was going to show me the sea. She was going to introduce me to the life that exists outside of the walls my family kept me behind out of fear of my powers and the predictions they bring. She was going to give me something to smile about.

And then she was taken away. Taken so far away from me. Stripped away from my life by a wild flurry of sakura petals and a plunging fist, a fountain of blood and a gentle smile. Her life, torn from her beautiful frame. Her smile, removed forever from her gentle lips.

Taken away from me by the Sakurazukamori.

But he isn't the one I've hated.

I had once thought to hate him for taking her away, for murdering her so swiftly and so coldly under the boughs of his precious sakura tree, for condemning her soul to the lush branches of that huge soul seeking plant. I had tried desperately to hate her killer for what he had done.

But I could not.

Especially not when I reached for him in his dreams, seeking to exact my vengence upon him in the form of nightmares and haunted guilt. When I touched his dreams, when I'd seen the emptiness of his soul, when I realized that nothing remained for him save servitude to the sakura and that guilt would not affect him as his capacity for that diabolical emotion had been long since stripped away by the ghastly tree he served,

when I experienced the surge of power that marked him as one of my own,

I could not hate him. He was devoid of humanity. He was nothing more than a soulless vessel, forever trapped by his heritage and his fate to service the harvester of blood and souls. He was a tool.

And he was a Dragon of Earth, as I am.

A tool of fate, a tool of the sakura. I could not bring myself to hate the man.

I came to appreciate his actions with her over time. I began to thank him for making her death as swift as he had. One rapid plunge of the fist, and her life was stolen from her, her spirit wrenched free of her human shell and sent to the sakura to dwell in its beautiful folliage for all eternity.

No, it wasn't the Sakurazukamori I had so hated. I appreciated him. I pitied him for his fate, for his lack of emotional awareness to even give a damn about it. I felt about him as I felt about the rest of the Dragons of Earth - calm indifference.

My venomous hate was against YOU.

The one for who my dear Hokuto was killed.

The one who so possessed her heart that she gave her life in exchange for yours.

The one who killed the man who had shown her the mercy of a swift death to satiate the throbbing thirst of the sakura.

Sumeragi Subaru.

So many nights I had sat upon that seashore, staring into the rolling waves she had shown me, reflecting on you. On how you had killed her.

For that's how it was. It wasn't the Sakurazukamori who had murdered my Hokuto. It was you.

You, her brother, had forced her hand by breaking your promise. You had forced her hand by going within. You had forced her hand by killing your own spirit. You had forced her hand by leaving her alone.

Sakurazuka Seishiro was simply a tool. Sumeragi Subaru, you were her murderer.

If you had answered the call of the sakura as you were supposed to on that day nine years ago, it would have been you dead by the roots of that giant tree, your heart ripped from your chest, your blood dripping from the Sakurazukamori's hand. Not hers. Not precious Hokuto's blood.

She would have remained in the world of the living. Her, with her strong heart and will, her ability to move on if necessary.

She would have found the strength to leave the memory of you to rest.

She would have found me. She would have rescued me. She would have learned of my love for her. And perhaps over time she would have come to return that love.

We would have gone to the sea, she and I. We would have left the Sakurazukamori to exist alone, leaving him as a memory of the past with you who should have remained his prey, with you who should have fallen to the predator's talons.

I pray Hokuto forgives me for having so hated you.

Without your knowledge, I invaded your dreams last tonight.

It wasn't at all what I had expected.

I've invaded many dreams - the geared space of Hinoto-hime's dreams, with its deserts and delapitated Tokyo Tower. The watery planes flooded with beautiful mermaids and colorful fishes that were Kotori-chan's scapes. The darkness with its storm of feathers and crucifixes that floods the befuddled Kamui's nightmares. The oceanside of my precious Hokuto.

Nothing could have prepared me for the sea of red. For the sight of the sakura, huge and foreboding, at the dream's center. For the stinging pain of cuts left by razor-edged sakura blossoms carried by a swift, horrible wind scented with the copper of blood and the sickeningly sweet smell of decaying flesh. For the thickness of blood oozing between my toes and splattering upon my shoulders, staining my hair with ruby shades as it dripped from the utter blackness that was above.

No, not blackness. That was crimson. That was flesh, open wounds. Life's liquid, dripping from above even as it rolled in waves around my feet.

Nothing could have prepared me for the vision I beheld in that dream.

Hokuto would have cried if she'd seen her brother's dreams as I saw them this night. She would have cried for you.

As I lay in my bed now, I feel the soft wetness of tears snaking down my cheeks.

I cry for you.

For you, seated at the roots of the sakura, staring into that morbid sea with huge, empty eyes. For you, carressed by tendrils of the sakura tree which whisper quiet promises of release from those emotions that haunt you, that make you hurt so very much, that bring tears to your eyes at every moment, that lock you within your own heart should you just fulfill your promise to serve it.

It reminded you of the other promise you broke. It reminded you of what happened.

It showed you her death. Over and over and over again. Her death constantly replaying in your dreams, before your eyes as you're forced to stare. Her voice crying out for you not to go far away. Her voice quietly accusing you of murdering her, of breaking your promise to her and driving her to give herself to the sakura, driving her to allow her blood to be spilled for you. Her voice crying against you in hatred for taking Sakurazuka Seishiro's life. For becoming the enemy. For abandoning her, for abandoning your love, for abandoning your family and your responsibilities.

I know she would never have said that to you. I know how much she loved you.

But my heart was pounding, my blood roaring loudly in my ears, my cheeks emptied of blood and my vision swirling with oncoming dizziness and nausea at her hate filled words. At your own accusations against yourself given her voice. At your tears as you whimpered that you had tried to join her, that you had tried to redeem yourself for what you'd done. At the sakura's quiet consolations that with your servitude it would erase your pain, that it would consume your pitifully shattered soul and destroy those emotions that are killing you.

I had nearly collapsed, nearly given in to my longings to fall to my knees and sob, when I heard another voice join hers in your dream. When I heard the soft baritone of Sakurazuka-san join in the accusatory play that ran through your dreams, confirming her words - that it was because of his Subaru-kun's selfishness that he was forced to murder precious little Hokuto-chan, that it was because of his Subaru-kun that he had to be involved with the Dragons of Earth, that it was because of his Subaru-kun's interferrance and quickly established kekkai that he had to simply stand back instead of trying to draw the Dark Kamui away at Sunshine 60, that it was because of his Subaru-kun that he activated Hokuto-chan's final spell. That he had committed suicide by the living Sumeragi Twin's hand.

The pain that whirled through that dreamscape as violently as those sakura petals that floated from the tree that dominated that blood sea.

God, it was overwhelming.

And to think that such a dream would have such a strong presence, such a strong aura of permanency.  
Do you dream that every night, Subaru-san?

Are your dreams always that terrible?

Is that why the others around me speak of your condition so quietly as I remain comatose upon Kanoe's grand throne in the basement of Tokyo's Municiple Building? Why Satsuki had quietly asked Yuuto if you were physically able to uphold Sakurazuka-san's position as a Dragon of Earth? Why Kanoe's voice held a slight hint of doubt in its depths as she muttered that you were the new Sakurazukamori and now a Dragon of Earth, and that you would be assisting us during the battles of the Promised Day?

Is it because you can't sleep at night?

I was only in that dreamscape for an hour. Perhaps two at best. Then it faded away into the light of the world of the awakened.

I had hated you for so long, but now.

Now I don't believe I can. Because, in your dreams, you proved me to be wrong in my one assumption that truly allowed my poisoned hatred of you to persist.

I had always thought that you didn't care about Hokuto. That you had sacrificed her and left her to continue your fight with the Sakurazukamori. That you had taken her blood sacrifice as something unremarkable. That you were continuing on with your own life, abandoning the significance of what she had given for you.

I was so wrong.

You loved her as completely as she had loved you.

That was why you had come back from the prison Sakurazuka-san had condemned you to when he completely shattered your heart and your spirit. That was why you sought your own death at his hands.

Not only out of your love for him, but out of your love for her. For the pleasure of knowing that he had regarded you as something worthwhile for the merest instant of time he had driven his hand through your body. For the pleasure of knowing that for eternity's span you would be reunited with your darling sister, with the other half of your broken soul. For the hope of redemption at the Sakurazukamori's hands, for the hope that your blood would make ammends for your mistakes of the past.

God, you're a fool. That's the last thing my dear Hokuto would have wanted.

But I can understand, perhaps. I can understand why you would Wish what you had wished.

For I Wish the same thing.

You and I are the same, Sumeragi. We both Wish for death. We both Wish to be reunited with that bright star who lit our dismal lives.

I can not hate you. Not when you and I are, in this one perspective, so identical.

All I can feel for you now is pity.

_-end-_


End file.
